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Monday, December 04, 2006

Stay tuned: Wax Tailor MP3s

Photo by Thomas Beaucé

A lot of the photos of French DJ Wax Tailor are shadowy or black-and-white, a pretty fitting hint at the man's music. Because Wax Tailor, AKA Jean-Cristophe Le Saoût, specializes in hip-hop instrumentals that center around old film samples. He makes atmospheric and inspired mood music that's cinematic enough to supplant a night at the movies. From the Hitchcock snippets to the Kubrick excerpts, at times, Tales of the Forgotten Melodies can play like Night Ripper for cinephiles. Or it may call to mind a full-length expansion of RJD2's "The Horror" or a Madvillain intro.

But it's far more erratic and interesting than its breakdown of samples. For one, the album incorporates three great contributors–cellist Marina Quaisse, North Carolina rappers The Others and vocalist Charlotte Savary–into its manifold playlist. It's also across-the-board exciting, switching from upbeat to downtempo, from wistful to paranoiac, from the relatively simple to the deeply textured in masterful ways.

With DJ Shadow fumbling with The Outsider and RJD2 forgoing sampling for the foreseeable future, Wax Tailor could easily become the next premiere hip-hop instrumentalist. He's got the sound, he's got the scope, and he's got limitless potential to build on. He's making music that's vividly rooted in the past, but somehow keeps pointing at the possibilities of what's next. (A sample sample: "I believe in the future. I believe in the future.") And indeed, even though I just bought Tales of the Forgotten Melodies, I'm already anxiously looking forward to the sequel.